Movie review: 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For'

'Sin City: A Dame to Kill' For faces many of the problems that films like 300: Rise of an Empire did. It has come way too late after the original film, and other films have outdone it in terms of the visual spectacle. The first Sin City was a landmark in visual aesthetics and eyeball candy with its dark black and white cinematography. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but it became a cult favourite, and deservedly so. Pulp noir had never been done with so much style before, and it was great to see a no-holds-barred A-rated comic book action drama. We’ve had movies like The Spirit since then that pretty much killed the visionary quality of the style. No matter how good the original film or the sequel is, nine years is just too darned long to make a sequel.

'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For'

It doesn’t help that A Dame to Kill For is even worse than its predecessor when it comes to simple storytelling. There are even more characters this time around, and the film becomes way too convoluted for its own good. Most of the major characters from the first film, including Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, are part of this film. Joining in the fray are Joseph Gordon Levitt, Josh Brolin, Ray Liotta and Eva Green as the chief antagonist. Those who’ve seen the original will know that the story isn’t much more than an excuse to see a lot of gore and nudity. On that front, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For delivers the goods. Eva Green is pretty much unsheathed throughout the film – she gives her performance in The Dreamers a run for her own money.

There is a bit of a plot that seems like a shadow of the plot in the original film. In fact, if you cut up both the films into separate pieces and put them together again, you’d get the exact same movie. Sure, there is more over the top violence, courtesy once again of Marv, the psychotic character wonderfully played by Rourke, but it is rendered in 3D this time to render all the hard work put in the cinematography useless.

Moreover, the violence in the first movie had a purpose in every subplot, the bloodshed in this movie doesn’t help propel the plot – it is used as cheap thrills. Not exactly the movie you would expect from Robert Rodriguez. But then again, he’s made two Machete movies, so motives are moot.